But Han Xiaorui wasn’t in a hurry. She occasionally tugged the bait upward gently, making it move around as if it were alive.
She moved it up and down like this for a good while until finally, a Luo Duan nearly a meter long couldn’t resist. It charged over, opened its huge mouth, and swallowed the bait!
It got a tasty meal, but it also got the hook.
The Luo Duan struggled violently, kicking up sand and silt around the reef. This scared the other Luo Duan away, sending them scattering into the deeper parts of the reef.
After a struggle, Han Xiaorui finally pulled the large Luo Duan out of the water and put it into the livewell.
A single fish took up an entire livewell!
She didn’t want to cause a commotion, nor did she plan on catching any more Luo Duan. She moved to a new spot and was surprised to find brightly colored ornamental fish in the water.
Ornamental fish were little creatures too, with vibrant colors that were very visually striking.
Han Xiaorui immediately decided to catch this triggerfish and put it in her fish tank at home.
Good things come in pairs. She caught two and placed them in a separate tank.
Han Xiaorui circled the reef again and, with a bit of luck, caught another Luo Duan, this one fifty centimeters long.
She decided to sell the big one and keep the small one for herself to eat.
In her past life, her father had been a chef who was especially skilled with seafood. Having grown up around it, she knew how to cook it as well.
She had already thought of five ways to prepare the Luo Duan.
It would be both delicious and nutritious.
Han Xiaorui wasn’t greedy. She prepared to head home. After all, she had plenty of time. From now on, as long as the weather was good, she would come out to sea to fish.
In reality, there were also plenty of lobsters and crabs near this reef, but she didn’t have any traps. She would come back for them after she got the right equipment.
Just as she was about to head back, she suddenly noticed a regular, cylindrical object sticking out of a patch of silt near the reef.
Han Xiaorui could tell at a glance that this wasn’t something natural from the seabed. It was probably some kind of surveillance device.
Looking closer, she saw that it even had English letters on it.
Han Xiaorui was now basically certain that this was an underwater surveillance device deployed by a foreign country.
’As a patriotic, law-abiding citizen, how can I just stand by and do nothing after seeing this?’
Han Xiaorui took off her jacket and jumped into the water!
One of her Water Ability superpower’s effects was that she could breathe underwater. Her body seemed to be immune to the water pressure, and she was more agile than a fish!
She dove down more than twenty meters and looped the rope she was holding around the finned surveillance device. Then, Han Xiaorui started pulling.
Han Xiaorui had thought it wouldn’t be very long, but it turned out to be over twenty centimeters in diameter and a full one and a half meters long. Two-thirds of it was buried in the sand and silt.
Han Xiaorui dragged the object onto her boat and found two large polypropylene sacks to cover it.
She once again headed for the county wharf.
Things were different from yesterday, when people had assumed that because Han Xiaorui was a woman, she wouldn’t have any good fish on her boat. After her haul of over two hundred pounds of grouper, everyone now remembered the woman who had hit the grouper jackpot.
Now, seeing Han Xiaorui’s boat approach, they immediately crowded around. "What’d you catch today, miss?"
"Luo Duan," Han Xiaorui replied. "I just weighed it. It’s about eighty or ninety pounds. Interested?"
When the crowd heard this, they all gasped. "A Luo... Luo Duan? No way! You caught a Luo Duan in a small fishing boat like that?"
Han Xiaorui, her face veiled, felt these people weren’t serious buyers. Not wanting to waste her breath, she stood on her tiptoes and spotted Boss Zhang, who had bought her fish yesterday. "Boss Zhang, I have an eighty-to-ninety-pound Luo Duan. Do you want it?"
The moment Boss Zhang heard that, he rushed over with his men. "Yes, I’ll take it all!"
The other fish buyers finally reacted.
"I want it too!"
"Out of the way, sell it to me!"
Seeing that the crowd was about to rush her, Han Xiaorui quickly backed her boat away. Otherwise, with so many people, her small boat wouldn’t be able to hold them all.
"Make your offers! Highest bidder wins!" Han Xiaorui said. ’Fishing is all about making money, after all.’
Boss Zhang was anxious. He wanted to establish a working relationship with this woman, so that in the future, she would sell all the fish she caught to him.
He hadn’t sold all the fish he’d bought yesterday. He’d put the rest in the tanks at the entrance of his establishment, where they immediately drew a crowd.
Today, all of those groupers had been reserved.
Fish of such exceptional quality, even at a high price, were never hard to sell.
A fishmonger shouted, "Ten yuan a pound!"
"I’ll give you twelve!"
"I’ll give you fifteen!"
"I’ll give you sixteen!"
This was already a very high price for the time, but everyone wanted to get their hands on this fish.
Boss Zhang bellowed, "I’ll pay twenty! Miss, sell it to me! That’s a top-dollar price."
This was 1985, after all!
In an era when the average monthly salary was less than a hundred yuan, this single Luo Duan that Han Xiaorui had caught could sell for over a thousand.
The others shot resentful glances at Boss Zhang. They couldn’t afford to outbid him.
"I’ll count to three. If no one raises the price, this Luo Duan belongs to Boss Zhang," Han Xiaorui announced. "One... two... three! Boss Zhang, come and get your fish."
This fish was huge and difficult to weigh on the boat, so it had to be carried ashore.
Boss Zhang boarded the boat, and his eyes lit up with delight when he saw the massive Luo Duan. He looked more captivated than if he were seeing the most beautiful woman. "What a fish! My goodness!"
They hauled it up and weighed it. It was an astonishing ninety-five pounds.
At twenty yuan a pound, that came to one thousand nine hundred yuan.
Boss Zhang quickly scrambled back onto the boat. There was still a smaller one inside, which must have been at least thirty pounds. "I’ll take this small one too!"
Han Xiaorui waved her hand. "The small one’s not for sale! It’s for me to eat. It’s getting late, Boss Zhang. Let’s settle the bill."
A look of regret crossed Boss Zhang’s face. Failing to buy that smaller Luo Duan felt like he’d had a piece of his own flesh carved off.
But he was prompt with the payment. He counted out one thousand nine hundred yuan and handed it to Han Xiaorui.
"Miss, what should I call you?" Boss Zhang asked. "Like I told you yesterday, I run a hotel. Whatever you catch from the sea, just sell it to me. I guarantee I’ll give you a better price than the wholesalers."
Han Xiaorui thought for a moment, then nodded. "I work alone, so it’s not convenient for me to make deliveries. When I catch fish, I’ll come here to sell them. If you’re here, I’ll sell to you."
Boss Zhang was relieved. "Then we have a deal. Miss, will you be coming every day from now on?"
"Not necessarily," Han Xiaorui replied. "But I’ll go out to sea whenever the weather is good."
Shencheng was already starting to develop rapidly, and housing prices were constantly on the rise.
’I need to take this chance to make more money and buy more property. It’s the best and most hassle-free investment I can think of right now.’
"Alright, it’s getting dark. You should head home, miss." Having gotten her assurance, Boss Zhang felt at ease.
’From now on, I’ll come to the wharf whenever the weather is good. If I’m too busy to come myself, I’ll have one of the restaurant staff come instead.’
Han Xiaorui, thinking about the surveillance device she had fished out from the reef still in her boat’s cabin, hurried back.
Han Xiaorui didn’t bother saying goodbye to the people at the wharf. She locked her boat’s cabin and headed home, carrying the two triggerfish.
The first thing she did when she got home was call the police. "Hello, is this 110? I’m a fisher from Jinshan Bay. My name is Han Xiaorui. I was out at sea today and, uh, I found a cylindrical object with English letters on it. It looks like the kind of surveillance device mentioned during the safety awareness campaign they held in our village last year."
"Thank you for your call. I will report this immediately and we’ll head over as soon as possible." The operator on the other end carefully noted down her address and name, then hung up and immediately filed the report.
The relevant department received the call and immediately dispatched a team. A tall, stern-faced man led them, driving over at once.